planning, operations regulatory compliance, and occurrence investigations. Ms. Ackermans has held several rail industry committee memberships over her career, including the Safety & Operations Management Committees of both the Railway Association of Canada and the American Association of Railroads. She received an M.B.A. from Concordia University in Montreal and an honors B.A. in psychology from Carleton University in Ottawa.

C. Tyler Dick is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin (UT). Prior to joining UT in 2022, Dr. Dick spent 10 years as a research engineer and lecturer with the Rail Transportation and Engineering Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He previously spent 11 years as a railway design engineer with HDR Engineering where he attained the title of professional associate in recognition of his expertise in railway yard and terminal design. His current research is focused on railway capacity, network design, yard and terminal operations, operations potential of advanced railway traffic control systems with virtual and moving blocks, and railway applications of alternative energy and automation. Dr. Dick is a licensed professional engineer and is actively involved in American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association committees 16, 24, and 14, Transportation Research Board Committees AR030 and AR040, the American Society of Civil Engineers Rail Transportation Committee, and the INFORMS Railway Applications Section. He is also on the board of the International Association of Railway Operations Research. Dr. Dick holds a B.Sc. in civil engineering from the University of Manitoba and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Illinois.

Theresa M. Impastato currently serves as the executive vice president and the chief safety officer for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, where she has primary responsibility for the oversight and implementation of a multimodal safety management system. Over the course of her 25 years in the transportation industry, Ms. Impastato has held roles in operations, engineering, project management, and safety at Amtrak, the New Jersey Transit RiverLINE, and in private industry. With a background in science and systems engineering, Ms. Impastato has served as a voting member on federal advisory committees and industry working groups dedicated to the development of minimum safety standards in rail transportation. She is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences. She holds an M.Sc. in data and systems analysis from the University of Oxford and a B.A. in applied sciences from the University of Pennsylvania.

Venetta H. Keefe served as the manager of the Rail Programs Office (RPO) within the Multimodal Division at the Indiana Department of Transportation

(INDOT) during most of the study period. She was hired by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) in March 2024. RPO includes passenger and freight rail functions, including Amtrak’s Hoosier State, Indiana’s state-supported passenger rail service. On the freight side, she spearheaded the INDOT State Rail Safety Program sponsored by FRA. In the program, FRA trains and certifies state inspectors, and for Indiana, in the Highway-Rail Grade Crossing discipline. She is a member of the Transportation Research Board Freight Rail Committee, the Indiana representative on the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ Council on Rail Transportation, and a panel member for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program project Communicating the Value, Interactions, and Impacts of Freight to Stakeholders. She received her undergraduate degree from Florida A&M University and is currently enrolled in the graduate High-Speed/Intercity Rail Management Program at the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University.

Gary F. Knudsen is a retired locomotive engineer/conductor from Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF), where he was employed from 2004 to 2013. At BNSF he worked in the Northern California, Kansas, Nebraska, and Springfield Divisions, operating all varieties of freight trains, including those of more than 7,500 ft in length. His work experience included the operation of trains equipped with various technologies, including distributed power, electronically controlled pneumatic brakes, and both New York Air Brake locomotive engineer-assist/display and event recorder and Wabtec trip optimizer systems. Prior to his experience in rail transportation, he spent more than 25 years in the aviation industry in a variety of roles. He was formerly employed as a senior vice president in charge of all North American airline and aviation products liability underwriting for XL Capital. He was also employed as an aviation safety consultant for the Aeronautics Division of the California Department of Transportation. He has additional experience as a corporate pilot and holds an airline transport pilot rating. He holds an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan and a B.S. in aeronautical studies from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Dennis S. Mogan is a railroad inspector/safety specialist III with the Illinois Commerce Commission. He is retired from the railroad industry, at the Chief level, with more than 50 years of continuous service in both passenger and freight operations. This included 20 years with the Metra Passenger Rail Service, retiring as the chief safety, rules and regulatory officer and 20 years with the Milwaukee Road, Soo Line, and Canadian Pacific Railroads in positions up to acting division manager administration. Mr. Mogan was a member of the negotiated rulemaking committee of the Federal Railroad Administration for 49 C.F.R. Part 214. He has completed many training

courses offered by the National Safety Council, American Red Cross, and the American Public Transit Administration. Mr. Mogan was a member of the General Code of Operating Rules for many years and assisted in the writing of the 2020 rule book.

J. Allan Rutter has been involved in transportation policy for the past 38 years and currently serves as the division head for the Division of Freight and Investment Analysis at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, where he has worked for the past 8 years. Previously, he was a senior associate for Cambridge Systematics, before which he was the executive director of the North Texas Tollway Authority. Mr. Rutter was appointed by President Bush to serve as the Federal Railroad Administration administrator in 2001. Previously, Mr. Rutter served President Bush in Texas as the director of transportation policy, before which he was the deputy executive director of the Texas High-Speed Rail Authority. From 1984 to 1990, Rutter served Texas Governors Bill Clements and Mark White, and worked for the Texas House Transportation Committee and later developed transportation policy for Texas Governor Rick Perry. Mr. Rutter holds an M.P.A. from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and a B.A. in political science from The University of Texas at Austin.

John M. Samuels (NAE) is the president of Revenue Variable Engineering, LLC. Prior to retiring from Norfolk Southern Corporation in March 2006, he was the senior vice president operations planning and support, the position he had held since March 2000. He joined Norfolk Southern in January 1998, as the vice president operations planning and budget after spending 22 years at Conrail, the major northeastern freight railroad in the United States. During his career at Conrail, he held successive positions of the assistant vice president of industrial engineer-transportation, the vice president of continuous quality improvement, the vice president of engineering, the vice president mechanical, and the vice president operating assets, in charge of the planning and maintenance of Conrail’s 1,800 locomotives, 64,000 rail cars, and 18,000 miles of right-of-way. Prior to joining the railroad industry in 1978, he worked 8 years for General Motors Corporation as a co-op student and then a production engineer, and 10 years as a college professor at The Pennsylvania State University, during which time he earned a Ph.D. in industrial engineering. While at Penn State he had a joint appointment as a materials research scientist specializing in the manufacture of stainless steel and alloy steel products. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1996.

Peter F. Swan recently retired as an associate professor of logistics and operations management at The Pennsylvania State University, where he

taught undergraduate and graduate courses. Prior to his professorship, he worked for 7 years at Chessie System (now CSX) in operations and automotive marketing. He also consulted for several railroads after leaving CSX, including Iowa Northern Railway Company, Chicago Rail Link, and R.J. Corman Railroad Group. Dr. Swan has written several papers relating to carrier operations and/or economics. His expertise covers operations management, safety, economics, logistics, marketing, and information systems. More recently, Dr. Swan has focused his research on issues of productivity, operations, and transportation markets. Dr. Swan has chaired the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Freight Systems Group and the TRB standing committee for Freight Transportation Economics and Regulation. He is currently a member of the TRB Trucking Industry Research Committee and the Freight Transportation Economic and Regulation Committee. He has also served for 6 years on the TRB Committee on Freight Rail Transportation and remains very active with that committee as a friend. While at the University of Michigan (UM), Dr. Swan participated in both the UM Truckload Driver Survey and the UM LTL Case Study. Dr. Swan holds a Ph.D. in operations management from UM, an M.B.A. in transportation from the University of Tennessee, and a B.G.S. in computer science from UM.

Elton E. Toma is a senior engineer at the National Research Council Canada (NRC), where he leads a team of researchers conducting rail and road vehicle testing and simulation. He has led and been active in NRC studies related to freight and passenger rail operations concerning in-train forces, marshalling of freight cars, derailment causes, curving behavior, and vibration and noise. He is currently leading a research team investigating the performance of freight car air brake systems in cold climates and leading a team conducting a risk assessment of hydrogen fuel cell locomotives for freight use. He is a licensed professional engineer in the province of Ontario. He was a member of the 2016 Transportation Research Board’s committee performing a review of U.S. Department of Transportation testing of electronically controlled pneumatic brakes. He holds a Ph.D. and an M.Sc. in mechanical engineering from Queen’s University at Kingston (Ontario, Canada) and a B.Sc. in mechanical engineering from the University of Alberta.

Paul E. Vilter is retired from Amtrak, where he worked from 1999 to 2022. He most recently led Amtrak’s Planning, Commercial Services and Sustainability Department, and previously led Amtrak’s Host Railroad Group for 15 years. He also worked in Amtrak’s Finance Department. From 1989 to 1999, Mr. Vilter worked at Conrail in its intermodal marketing, short line relations, and carload sales and marketing functions. Mr. Vilter started his

railroad career in 1984 as a management trainee at the Chessie System Railroads where he subsequently worked in market research, metals marketing, and, after the merger that formed CSX, in intermodal planning. He worked closely with the Federal Railroad Administration, the Surface Transportation Board, and freight and passenger railroads around the nation during his tenure at Amtrak. He has spoken at the Transportation Research Board, the Transportation Research Forum, and most recently moderated a panel at the 2022 American Public Transit Association conference. Mr. Vilter holds a B.A. in materials and logistics management from Michigan State University and an M.B.A. from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.